2:1 And although you were 24 dead 25 in your transgressions and sins,
1 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the result of the war in heaven.
2 sn The ruler of this world is a reference to Satan.
3 tn Or “will be thrown out.” This translation regards the future passive ἐκβληθήσεται (ekblhqhsetai) as referring to an event future to the time of speaking.
4 tn Grk “I will no longer speak many things with you.”
5 sn The ruler of this world is a reference to Satan.
6 tn Grk “in me he has nothing.”
7 sn The world is proven wrong concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. Jesus’ righteousness before the Father, as proven by his return to the Father, his glorification, constitutes a judgment against Satan. This is parallel to the judgment of the world which Jesus provokes in 3:19-21: Jesus’ presence in the world as the Light of the world provokes the judgment of those in the world, because as they respond to the light (either coming to Jesus or rejecting him) so are they judged. That judgment is in a sense already realized. So it is here, where the judgment of Satan is already realized in Jesus’ glorification. This does not mean that Satan does not continue to be active in the world, and to exercise some power over it, just as in 3:19-21 the people in the world who have rejected Jesus and thus incurred judgment continue on in their opposition to Jesus for a time. In both cases the judgment is not immediately executed. But it is certain.
8 tn Or “that.”
9 sn The ruler of this world is a reference to Satan.
10 tn Or “judged.”
11 tn Or “expel you from.”
12 sn See the note on synagogue in 6:59.
13 tn Grk “an hour.”
14 sn Jesus now refers not to the time of his return to the Father, as he has frequently done up to this point, but to the disciples’ time of persecution. They will be excommunicated from Jewish synagogues. There will even be a time when those who kill Jesus’ disciples will think that they are offering service to God by putting the disciples to death. Because of the reference to service offered to God, it is almost certain that Jewish opposition is intended here in both cases rather than Jewish opposition in the first instance (putting the disciples out of synagogues) and Roman opposition in the second (putting the disciples to death). Such opposition materializes later and is recorded in Acts: The stoning of Stephen in 7:58-60 and the slaying of James the brother of John by Herod Agrippa I in Acts 12:2-3 are notable examples.
15 tn The phrase begins with the ἵνα (Jina) clause and is subordinate to the imperative προσκαρτερεῖτε (proskartereite) in v. 2. The reference to the idea that Paul must make it known indicates that this clause is probably best viewed as purpose and not content, like the ἵνα of v. 3. It is the second purpose stated in the context; the first is expressed through the infinitive λαλῆσαι (lalhsai) in v. 3. The term “pray” at the beginning of the sentence is intended to pick up the imperative of v. 3.
16 sn The relative pronoun which is feminine as is sins, indicating that sins is the antecedent.
17 tn Grk “walked.”
18 tn Or possibly “Aeon.”
19 tn Grk “domain, [place of] authority.”
20 tn Grk “of” (but see the note on the word “spirit” later in this verse).
21 sn The ruler of the kingdom of the air is also the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience. Although several translations regard the ruler to be the same as the spirit, this is unlikely since the cases in Greek are different (ruler is accusative and spirit is genitive). To get around this, some have suggested that the genitive for spirit is a genitive of apposition. However, the semantics of the genitive of apposition are against such an interpretation (cf. ExSyn 100).
22 tn Grk “working in.”
23 sn Sons of disobedience is a Semitic idiom that means “people characterized by disobedience.” However, it also contains a subtle allusion to vv. 4-10: Some of those sons of disobedience have become sons of God.
24 tn The adverbial participle “being” (ὄντας, ontas) is taken concessively.
25 sn Chapter 2 starts off with a participle, although you were dead, that is left dangling. The syntax in Greek for vv. 1-3 constitutes one incomplete sentence, though it seems to have been done intentionally. The dangling participle leaves the readers in suspense while they wait for the solution (in v. 4) to their spiritual dilemma.
26 tn See BDAG 1096 s.v. ψάλλω.
27 tn Or “with.”